Crossword Moments
by Angel-chan Desu
Summary: Stuck inside a café due to an unexpected rainstorm, the Lumiose Gym Leader and his friend attempt a small puzzle to pass the time. Clemont x Emma ship tease, fluff.


"Quick in here!" Holding the door open for his defenceless friend before joining her in the safety of the cafe, Clemont looked back out into the rainstorm that had suddenly appeared, glasses dotted with raindrops, and panted, "That...was sudden." Emma, who'd collapsed into a small booth near the door, ran a hand through her hair, which was now forming a puddle on the leather seat, wincing as her fingers found themselves trapped in a gang of soaked tangles, and replied in a similar fashion, "I'll say. Didn't the weather report say it'd be clear skies?" As the boy sat across from her, he spied a discarded newspaper sitting on the table next to them.

"I'll check," he said, grabbing the paper and checking firstly the date of the paper. Establishing that was certainly that day's paper, he put it down to allow himself to clean his glasses, which, as well as having raindrops on them, were beginning to fog up from the heat of the café the two had ran into for shelter from the unrelenting storm. Emma stood up, a stary stand of wet hair sticking to her cheek as she moved, and said, "I'll get us some drinks then while you do that. What would you like?"

"Hm?" Finding his attention already being taken by the print of the paper, Clemont had to turn away to answer, "Oh, a Shuca Berry smoothie would be fine, thanks." Rolling her eyes, yet unable to hold back even a tiny smile, Emma turned and made her way to the counter to order. Turning back to the paper and trying to find the weather section, while trying not to get distracted by anything else, the gym leader flicked through the pages until he found what he was looking for.

"Let's see..." He murmured, skimming the rather small section for any news on that day's weather. Unfortunately, spying something in the corner of the page, he couldn't help but find his eyes wandering. A crossword, and from the looks of it, whoever had possessed the paper last had attempted the puzzle; one answer was filled in, before they had given in. Feeling tempted, he began digging in his pockets for a pen, positive he had one only to be proven wrong when all he could find were some spare change, the cloth for his glasses and Heliolisk's Poké Ball.

"Here you go," Emma said as she placed his order in front of him. However his attention was thoroughly taken by the paper. As she sat down in front of him again, she frowned. Reaching over her hot chocolate, she flicked her fingers in his face and said, "Yo, you there?", making Clemont jump.

"Huh?" Seeing his drink, he muttered a quick, "Thank you," before taking a sip, eyes still trained on the paper in front of him. Emma, growing both curious and annoyed, sighed and asked, "So, whatcha reading there? Can't be the weather cause it isn't that interesting." This merely had the boy looking up with a blank expression as he said, "Huh? Oh, yeah, interesting. You got a pen?" Eyebrow cocked at the odd request, she shook her head. Glancing over at the other table, she could see one sitting hidden from view - well, his view at least - by the salt and pepper shakers. Reaching over and grabbing it, she asked, holding it out, "This what your looking for?" Clemont's face perked up as he saw the item, yet as he reached for it, Emma pulled her hand back.

"Tell me why you need it first." With a pout that seemed more fitting on his sister's face than his own, he muttered something she couldn't quite hear. As her leaning forward - yet keeping the pen out of reach, unless he wanted to stand up and try and grab it from her, which would've resulted in a petty squabble, which would've attracted unwanted attention and made the two teens look like children - indicated that she hadn't quite heard what he'd said, he sighed and said again, "I want to try this crossword." Emma almost dropped the pen.

"Seriously?" she deadpanned, looking highly unamused. When he nodded, she sighed and tossed the pen at him, saying, "Fine then. It'll be a laugh anyway, and it's something to do while we're stuck in here." The pen was quickly snatched up and already, the boy was hard at work, filling in answer after answer. When Emma peaked over the top of the paper to see how his progress was going, she was amazed at the speed he was working at; at least a third already filled in, ignoring the one answer filled in by the previous owner of the paper. However, he suddenly stopped, and with a curious expression on his face, he leaned back, tapping the pen against his cheek as he murmured something Emma couldn't quite hear. Curious as well due to his sudden change in behaviour, she leaned forward and, trying to locate his position from her awkward, upside-down viewing area, asked, "What's up? You stuck?"

"Sort of," Clemont muttered, prompting his friend to look up and him and ask, "Well what's the clue? I could help." Sighing, he leaned forward again and read out, "'A species of pokémon resembling an old, rarely used written alphabet. Five letters.'" It was his turn to be surprised as she answered, quite quickly, "Isn't that Unown?" The gym leader simply stared at her for a few moments, stupefied, before he finally asked, "How do you know what they are?" Emma shrugged.

"I've seen them mentioned here and there in magazines talking about other regions. How do you _not_ know what they are? I thought you were the genius." This last sentence was said with a teasing smile, making the blond blush. He looked away as he muttered, "Well, we don't have Unown in Kalos." Rolling her eyes, the girl grabbed the paper and held out her hand for the pen.

"Give that here, I want to try this myself," she said. The first thing she did was fill out the answer that had stumped her genius friend. Then, as she skimmed the list of clues, she moved to a slot in the bottom corner of the puzzle, smirking as she said, eyes filled with amusement, "Oh, you would've gotten this one so easily. 'Central tower of Lumiose City. 10 letters.'" Clemont chose to ignore this as she filled in this answer, though when he heard her muttering, "'Pokémon with mutatable DNA; capable of evolving into many different pokémon. Five letters.' That's Eevee.", he couldn't help but frown and ask, "Hold on, are you just doing random clues?" Emma looked up, confused.

"Yeah. There's nothing wrong with it. What, do you go in order? Actually, don't answer that, I can see right here that you do," she snickered. However, her smile turned into a frown as she found herself in a similar position as he'd been previously.

"You stuck?" he asked. Emma bit her lip, then sighed, asking, "What's a six letter city in Sinnoh, starting with an E? It comes off the 'Eevee' answer." He had to think about it first, but in reply, he said, pushing up his glasses, "Well there's only one city in Sinnoh that starts with an E." However it was left at that as he took another sip of his smoothie. Emma pouted, annoyed.

"Can you tell me?" The boy chuckled at her expression, saying as he did so, "If you insist. It's Eterna." As she filled in this answer, he said, "Sorry about that. Look, why don't we work on it together? We both seem to know at least some things the other doesn't." The girl paused, rolling the pen between her index finger and thumb as she thought this over before handing both the pen and the paper back to the boy, saying, "Sounds like a plan." The two worked on, bouncing answers back and forth between each other.

"'One of Kanto's legendary birds. Six letters.'" Clemont read, making him frown. He pushed his glasses up and muttered, "How are we supposed to pi-" He was interrupted as Emma said, "It's Zapdos." He stared at her, before asking, "How can you tell? There's three legendary birds." Emma nodded, drinking from her hot chocolate in a fashion that would indicate she was draining off the last dregs. When she put the cup back down, she nodded again and said, "True, but Zapdos is the only one whose name has six letters. Moltres has seven and Articuno has," she paused to quickly count it up on her fingers, "eight." This made the boy blush again as he realised she was right. And he turned an even darker shade of pink when she giggled, "You know, for a genius, you're a little slow sometimes."

"So I've been told," he muttered, hiding his flushed face behind the newspaper. The two fell silent, with him skimming over the answers they'd put in so far and her looking out the window, watching the rain. Eventually, she broke the silence between them as she asked, "What's happening with Bonnie right now?" Clemont lowered the newspaper and coughed, trying to clear his throat before saying, "She's at Trainer School right now. She's been going regularly for a few months now."

"I was talking more about what was going to happen with picking her up because of the rain. I already sort of knew about the Trainer School, but that's still nice to hear." Hearing this, the boy coughed again, "Ah, I see. Well, I'd already arranged it with Viola to pick her up. If she was free of course. If the rain doesn't let up soon, I hope she's got the sense to keep Bonnie at her place till it does. I forgot to bring my Holo Caster with me so I can't check in with her to ask if she can do that."

"I'm sure she will. Who'd be stupid enough to try going out in this, unless they've got something really important on?" Emma said. Silence fell again. This time, both teenagers had their focus on the rain outside. The café in general was quiet, apart from a couple in the back corner muttering borderline naughty things not so quietly to each other, and an old man sitting by the counter. He huffed, "This weather isn't fit even for Ducklett. Wouldn't be surprised if you see Magikarp in the streets soon." Emma eventually turned back to the boy across her and asked, "How much is left on that? Think we could finish it before the rain stops." Clemont chuckled dryly, "I think that's highly possible." The dark haired girl leaned forward, wearing a coy smile as she rested her head on her intertwined fingers.

"Then shoot. Give us another clue."

* * *

**Hello ship tease~! :D**

**So yeah, I ship this, and I hope reading this made you ship it too. If not, then thanks for at least putting up with it and I hope you enjoyed reading it nonetheless.**

**Admittedly, the reason for these two knowing each other and being friends is related to another story I'm doing, considering in canon, these two might as well not know the other exists. Well, Emma might know Clemont does since he's the freaking gym leader of the city, but my point stands.**

**I'm not forcing you to go read the other story, I'm simply saying that's where them meeting originates from. If you're curious though, it's chapters 5 and 6 of Tales. ;) Just saying.**

**/shot**

**Anyway, like I said above, thanks for reading regardless of whether you ship or you were just humouring me, and I do hope you did enjoy, again regardless of either factor.**

**Angel-chan x**

**Ps. The inspiration for this came from a post on a tumblr blog called Imagine Your OTP. In case youse were curious.**


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